


A Demon's Vow

by notavodkashot



Series: Old Archive [7]
Category: Beastmaster
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-13
Updated: 2013-07-13
Packaged: 2017-12-19 07:41:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/881215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notavodkashot/pseuds/notavodkashot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Curupira learns of Tao’s intervention to bring Ruh back to life, after he died protecting Dar from the Liquid Stone’s power. She’s intrigued.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Demon's Vow

**Author's Note:**

> [Originally written in 2007]
> 
> First Beastmaster fic in a very, very, very, very long while, one that’s actually worth of public mention. Comments on characterization always welcome, since I feel slightly rusty while playing with these characters.

She sits by the river, twisted feet hanging as she taps her left leg rhythmically. She’s green and vicious like Nature around her, unforgiving like the Forest she owns, simply because such is the Law that rules them all. The stronger survive, the weakest perish; whilst she and her favorite ilk persist in wildness. Tao is not such, he’s not hers and he doesn’t understand her ways, but nevertheless he respects them, because he loves one of her creatures – hers, hers, _hers_ – and one cannot love what one does not respect.

At first she was weary of the one that came to lure her Beastmaster away, a slip of a boy with too bright eyes and too big a mouth, one that never knew when to keep silent and when to pay respect to Nature. She had hated him, then, when he snared her favorite toy away from her slopes and her trees, away from her river and her mountain. She hated him because he is _human_ and humans always, always bring despair into the jungle and the forest.

Humans only know to look after themselves; they never lift a finger to make up for all the destruction they leave behind.

But then the tiger came back, trotting gleefully back to her feet, because he is _hers_ and all that is hers loves her as dearly as she loves them. The tiger is the Beastmaster’s friend, friend and not pet, because Dar is also _hers_ and all those that are hers are friends among themselves; her love is the chain that binds them together, what keeps the trees from drifting too deep underground or reaching too far into the sky; hers is the love that makes the cycle keep spinning, none too alive and none too dead and everything’s perfect because she loves it that way.

The tiger told her a strange tale, one that amuses and bemuses her, one that tells of a creature that is not hers – a _man_ of all things – that loves her Beastmaster and loves her Beastmaster’s friends – eagle, tiger and ferrets, inhuman or not – simply because they are part of who her Beastmaster is. Curupira is a demon, and she had never thought the day would come when something as _flimsy_ as a human would understand the true meaning behind her own special brand of love.

“You pleaded for My tiger,” she says with a frown, and it’s a green frown that twists green eyes and green, green, _green_ , “why?”

And Tao’s speechless, because he’s afraid. There’s no Dar between them now, no Dar to plead for his life or to direct her wrath away from him. It’s only him and a demon and who knows what will happen? He’s afraid and he knows that she knows that he knows that she knows he’s afraid, because he’s just tiny and the only strength he possesses, the sharp tongue that snared her Beastmaster away, is useless against a Demon who only listens to what she wants to hear.

“Because Dar would have died a little,” it’s an honest answer, Curupira is further intrigued – humans are not known for telling the truth, they’re known from hiding and lying until they don’t know which one is which, “because the world would have been a bit duller and the stars a bit hollower and it would have made you cry.”

“Are you saying I’m like those whining human girls that cry over everything between heavens and hell?” Her tone is seductive, promising quick, painful death should his answer displease her.

“No,” it takes all his courage, but his lips smile gently and she’s forced to admit that he’s pretty when the gesture reaches his eyes, “but you love your animals just like Dar loves Ruh, and if one of them died you’d be saddened, wouldn’t you?”

“I don’t cry when my animals are taken,” Curupira bristles a little, all green and poisonous like the ivy that killed Tao’s sister when she was a kid, “I make sure it won’t happen again.”

“Anger is sadness gone awry,” Tao tries and doesn’t lose his patience, months talking with Dar have taught him how to pace himself against a creature of Nature – it’s like talking with him, really, except that if Curupira gets bored, then Tao dies and maybe it’s not quite the same thing anymore, “You love them and they love you, if you lose one of them, it hurts. They would mourn you just as well, if you were to be lost along the way.”

“You took him away from me.”

The way she slides down towards him tells him they’re not talking about Ruh or death anymore, and Tao tenses when her eyes – green, green, _green_ – peer down at him, narrowed and judging. Curupira lives to judge, to order and command, it’s in her nature as it’s in Tao’s to ask and be curious. But if he doesn’t pass her judgment it’ll be the end of the journey and he’s quite certain that not even Dar could arrive in time to save him.

“I gave him his gift, he paid me in blood and loyalty, and still, when you asked him, he went away with you.” Clawed hands come to rest on his shoulders, he feels their talons slowly digging into cloth and wonders when is his life going to start flashing before his eyes. “Tell me why shouldn’t I punish you for distracting him away from his responsibilities?”

“Because you know there’s nothing to keep him away from that,” Tao gives her a wry smile; he’s afraid, but he’s also sad, and this makes Curupira wonder some more, “not even me.”

They stand there for a moment longer, her talons still slipping into his skin through the green fabric – why is everything so damn _green_? – and there will probably be marks to explain to Dar later in the evening, but he doesn’t move, he barely breaths, even. His eyes are clear to her, hiding nothing behind the mercurial shift in their light, and she reads him like a book. Like Dar looks at _her_ animals, soul bared, like that she looks at him, and she thinks that maybe this is why her Beastmaster has gone away.

“He listens to you,” she says finally, breaking the spell when her lips move slowly around the words, “don’t lead him wrong.”

Tao is stunned for a moment, because if anything, _he_ follows Dar and not the other way around, but if Curupira says it, he’s not going to contradict. He values his life far too much to dare. Then she kisses his cheek, a little brush of those deadly lips that freeze the blood in his veins. It’s a flutter of a butterfly, though, because it leaves his skin as soon as it touches it, but it still makes something inside tremble with fear.

“You saved my tiger.” Curupira is getting away, slowly, like weeds growing against a tree, sinuous and precious and just the tiniest bit evil in her own ways, “I won’t cry for him or for other… but one day, maybe, I’ll shed a tear, you who took away My Beastmaster, and it will be only for you.”

Tao stands there long after she’s gone, until Dar comes to fetch him to get back home. He smiles to himself, a tiny secret he will share with no one else, because maybe, just maybe, today he’s learned something new.


End file.
